Restoration
by nyotaauhura
Summary: Gaia has won, the gods are in chains beneath Olympus and demigods are hunted for sport by both monsters and mortals. Despite her desperate situation, Piper Mclean, known now as Subject #7, refuses to give up. She survives and fights to see the gods and her world restored and to her beloved once more. (Rated T for swearing, violence and gore)
1. Subject 7

**A/N: Welp, I decided to write a fic where the seven fail and the world crumbles. Here's the first chpater. Kinda rushed and not very good, but heigh ho. The whole fic is gonna be written from Piper's P.O.V and there will be major character deaths, sorry. But, enjoy it all the same!**

**Song: 'Abraham's Daughter' - Arcade Fire**

* * *

Her boots slammed against the earth heavily, kicking up moss and leaves and twigs. Her breath came out in short pants. Her duffel bag slapped against her back, and her _gladius_ tapped her thigh. She was used to running. She was used to the burning in her lungs, the aching in her legs, the annoying way in which her supplies hit her body as she ran. After all, she'd been doing nothing but running and surviving for two years.

Piper Mclean had been her name back when the gods had been in power. Ever since Gaia had taken over, she'd been known as Subject #7, one of the escaped demigods. A bounty was on her head, though not as heavy as that on Percy and Annabeth's heads. Piper had learned to avoid villages and roads, sticking instead to the abandoned cities and woodland. Villagers knew her face. They'd stop at nothing to apprehend her and hand her over to the malicious earth goddess, dead or alive.

Piper has once been beautiful. She'd once laughed and smiled and danced and loved. Now, she scowled and hunted and ran. She survived. And she prayed an awful lot as well. She prayed to her mother, who was bound in chains in the heart of Mount Olympus, along with all the other gods. She prayed that she would one day find herself back in Jason's arms. That she would hear his voice. That she would be able to kiss him, right on that ancient little scar of his.

He was alive as far, as she was aware. Posters bearing his smiling were plastered along the roads, along with a 10,000 drachma bounty. Normally, when demigods were caught and killed, their posters were taken down. That's how Piper found out that Leo, Hazel and Frank had been killed. She shuddered. The day she'd seen the Cyclopse soldiers taking down the flyers had been one of the worst over the past two years. It still made her cry just thinking about it.

Piper leapt over a fallen tree trunk, lost her footing for a second and scrambled along the forest floor on her hands and knees for a moment. Dirt buried itself in the crevices of her nails. Her long hair fell in her face. She brushed it back irritably. It was reaching cutting length. The next time she stopped, she'd be slicing it all off again.

Her next stop was literally around the corner. She flew around the side of a large group of boulders and found the perfect place to set up camp. A thin stream cut through the forest floor, flowing fast. A formation of rocks made the perfect cave for resting in. If she was careful with her fires, she'd be able to stay at least three or four days.

She dropped her duffel bag down on the damp forest floor, resting her _gladius_, bow and quiver full of makeshift arrows down next to the bag. Before the Fall of Olympus, she'd only used a knife, Katoptris – which she still had – and her charmspeak in conflict. After the Fall, she realised that she couldn't just rely on her voice and looks to get her out of a battle. So, she raided the remains of Camp Jupiter for the _gladius_ and made her own bow. Weeks of training helped her to master both weapons. She'd learnt her survival skills along the way.

Piper didn't have much in the way of possessions. She had several bottles of nectar, a few squares of ambrosia in air-tight bags, a length of rope, a spare change of clothes, a ragged sleeping bag, three water containers, a lighter, her last pack of Chocolate Fudge Pop Tarts and an empty game bag she desperately needed to refill. Before the Fall, Piper had been average sized. Now, she was used to seeing her ribs poking out from under her skin. She was used to her sallow cheeks, her chapped lips and the dark shadows beneath her eyes.

What she was also used to was the daily struggle to survive, to keep on going in the hopes she would find those she cared about once again. Her father was dead. That much she knew. During the Fall, their Los Angeles condo had collapsed with her father still inside. When she went back to Camp Jupiter to see if anyone had survived, she'd passed through Los Angeles. Filled with hope, she'd gone to her old home to find her father, only to find his dead and decaying body. It had been one of the worst experiences of her life.

Piper sat the edge of the small stream, cupped water in her hands and splashed it into her face, washing away any exhaustion she had begun to feel. She still had a camp to set up and a meal to hunt. Exhaustion would hinder her movements. Exhaustion was as deadly an enemy as any of the monsters or mortal bandits prowling the wilds in search of her.

Her camp was set up in under five minutes. She left the small cave, armed with her bow and knife, and ventured into the trees. She did a loop of the area, going no further than 100 metres out from her camp. She knew to not stray too far as she ran the risk of losing her way, something she had done before.

It didn't take her long to find the stag that would become her meal. Within minutes of setting out and establishing a border, the stag had run straight across her path. Faster than a strike of lightning, she let loose the arrow that became the murderer of the stag. She fell to her knees before the fallen animal; the arrow still quivered in the poor animal's eye socket. The stag twitched feebly. Piper ended its suffering with a quick stab of Katoptris. Using some of the vines dangling from the branches of trees as a rope, she lugged the stag back to camp and set about skinning it.

The fur would provide her with a new blanket. He meat would give her sustenance for at least another day or two. Piper cast her gaze to the antlers, which were long and lethal. Good weapons for the future.

The ransacked carcass of the stag was dumped outside the hundred metre line. Piper concealed the body beneath a rock formation, hoping to the gods that no passing wolf pack would pick up the scent of the carcass and come for her.

Sitting beside the fire while she waited for her venison to cook, Piper reflected on the shell of her former self she had become. Before the Fall, she avoided meat at all costs after a horrible trip during which they passed a slaughter house. The smell eradiating from the place had driven her love of cheeseburgers from her mind. During the first few weeks of her surviving the wilds alone, she learned that being a vegetarian was no good any more, and had reluctantly turned back to eating meat as a last resort to live. If the world was ever given back to the gods, she was going straight back to being a veggie.

Of course, the chances of the world becoming the gods' again were slim. For two years, those ancient, unstoppable gods had been kept prisoner beneath the original Mount Olympus, chained to their home with the Celestial Bronze that was made to protect them. Their powers dampened and ridiculed, the gods did nothing to help themselves or their children. Then again, Piper thought, there was not much they could do.

The world was in shambles. It seemed as if Earth had reverted back to its primeval state. She remembered something Percy once told her on the _Argo II_, before he went missing, about the state of the world reminding him of Alaska. Wild. Untameable. Dangerous.

The world was dangerous. Piper could literally smell the danger. It leached into the woods, into the water and into her mind, poisoning her with random bouts of fear and paranoia. Of course, fear would kick start the adrenaline.

When her fight-or-flight response kicked in, Piper used to pick fight. That had been before the world went to shit and she had no choice but to choose flight in order to confirm her survival onto the next day. The few times she had chosen fight; she had lost in a big way and had been punished. She had the scars to show.

Piper sighed and rubbed her arms, her eyes on the sinking sun, which was only just visible through the canopy of leaves and branches sheltering her. And, not for the first time since the reign of Gaia had begun, Piper cursed herself for failing. It was her fault that the world had fallen to shit.

She'd turned her back on the gods, after all.


	2. Sands and Friends

**A/N: Chapter 2 already because I'm off school, I'm ill and I have nothing better to do than write fanfiction. Yay.**

**So, here you go. Rushed and probably crappy, but it's the best I can do. Enjoy, guys.**

**Song: 'After the Fall' – Two Steps From Hell (I freaked when I found this song).**

* * *

Three days after finding making camp in the stream beside the river, Piper was forced to leave it when a patrol of mortal bandits strayed to close and found the carcass of the stag she killed. She loved to be back on the move again, but the cave had offered quite a nice camp. Nevertheless, she needed to move on. She decided to take a big risk and head for the main road.

Since the Fall, bandits roamed the roads. Piper had taken note of how the bandits dressed and how they appeared to the public. They were aggressive, antisocial and often wore hoods and scarves covering their faces. Quite convenient for a demigod if one was to copy them. Of course, not many demigods could approach the roads. Piper was lucky in a way as her scent, as a daughter of the love goddess, was very, very weak. Only cyclopses could pick it up, and they rarely ever patrolled the roads.

Piper wrapped her black bandana around her mouth and nose before pulling her hood up to hide her face. As a daughter of Aphrodite, she had a limited amount of control over her appearance. She could change the colour of her eyes and skin and hair for an indefinite amount of time, so she made her eyes hazel, darkened her skin ever so slightly and turned her hair black before setting out in the direction of the road. She kept her knife, bow and quiver of arrows in plain sight so that mortals stayed away, but hid her sword in her bag. Bandits rarely ever used swords as they were renowned as demigod weapons. The antlers of the stag would raise even more suspicion, so she hid them in her bag as well.

The roads were nowhere near the woods. They sat out in the middle of the open. A death trap for powerful demigods, in other words. Fifty foot tall lamp posts illuminated the roads with Greek fire and also served as holders for bounty posters. As Piper trudged down the particularly dusty road heading further north to the city of Hyperion, she spotted at least fifteen posters where her face smiled.

Mortals travelling along the roads in carts or by foot stayed as far away from her as possible. Several of them eyed her knife and bow warily. At one point, a mortal strayed too close to Piper and she pulled out her knife, pretending to pick dirt from beneath her nails with it as she walked. The mortal walked in the opposite direction.

When Hyperion came into view on the horizon, Piper left the road and began her loop around the city, staying more than five hundred metres into the trees. Hyperion was the capitol of the Eastern Coast and was heavily fortified and crawling with monsters. She wasn't feeling suicidal, so she decided not to enter the city. The most she had ever seen of Hyperion was its limestone walls and the golden spire sticking out of a dome that was obviously the roof of the town hall.

Hyperion fell behind her and she walked back onto the road again. The road behind Hyperion was empty due to here being nothing further north. _Well, except for one thing_, Piper thought with a lurch in her stomach. The remains of New York City, which had been abandoned for two years, were very close. Which meant Long Island and Piper's old home were close also.

She had not returned to Camp Half-Blood once since the Fall. She had no desire to see her home in its decimated form. Camp Jupiter and New Rome had been a mess of bodies, blood, sand, fire and crumbling buildings when she'd scavenged for supplies, and Camp Jupiter had not been as heavily involved in the war against Gaia. Most of the combatants had been Greek. There would be nothing left of Camp Half-Blood.

Yet, it didn't hurt to have a look.

It took two days of walking, but she finally reached Long Island. In the meantime, she sliced most of her hair off, leaving it at an acceptable length. The ravaged locks only just brushed the tops of her ears. She still had her two thin braids falling down the side of her face, but the rest of her hair was cut short like a boy's. It stuck up at awkward angles all over her head and refused to lie flat.

Roads did not exist on Long Island. Neither did civilization. Not much existed north of Hyperion except for Canada, the realm of Khione and her half-brothers, and there were no colonies there as Khione hated mortals. Instead, the snow goddess ran a kingdom of wild animals and giants.

When Half-Blood Hill came into view, Piper knew the sight that would behold her at the top would be awful. Half-way up the hill, the grass turned black and became sand. The old pine tree that had once been Thalia, hunter of Artemis, was blackened and dead. Piper climbed the hill and almost cried when she saw the remains of her camp.

The Big House had collapsed into the sand, blown to bits by some sort of explosion beforehand. The cabins were just blackened structures overrun by sand. The lake and stream did not exist. Lava from the climbing wall seeped into the woods and the bed of the stream. The amphitheatre and arena reminded Piper of the coliseum, except in worse shape.

Despite wanting to turn and run, Piper found herself shuffling down the hill, her mouth wide open beneath her bandana. Her eyes, shielded from the sun by her hood, were wide as they took in every inch of the ruined camp. Halfway down the hill, Piper tripped on something white in the sand. She screamed when she saw that it was a skull. A human skull.

It was after she screamed that things went wrong.

Something heavy and blunt smashed into the side of her head and knocked her dizzy. Despite her blurred thoughts, she managed to deduce that it had been someone's fist. _Bandit_, was her immediate response. Her movements were slow and sluggish, and she screamed at herself to move faster. The air shifted around her. The sounds of shifting sand filled her ear and she only just managed to dodge the fist as it swung at her the second time.

Rolling through the sand, she cleared her head of confusion. She came up into a crouch and faced her attacker. Her mouth dropped open once more.

A memory sparked. Visions of standing on the beach just after arriving at Camp for the first time. A boy had pushed forwards from the crowd, all blonde haired, blue eyes and sporty. A bow had sat on his shoulder. He'd berated Annabeth for crashing the flying chariot.

Will Solace.

She'd known he was still alive. She'd seen his posters, bearing his face and 2,000 drachma bounty, plastered to the lamp posts on the roads a couple of days previous but had thought nothing of him. Before the Fall, she'd known him only by name. He'd never been a friend.

If she had known she would run into Will, she wouldn't have cut her hair so short. With her boyish hair-style, she was unrecognizable. And they'd barely ever talked. She hoped he recognized her voice at least.

"Will!" she shouted. His eyes, wild and feral like an animal's, went wide.

"How do you know my name?" he said, his guard falling, before he hissed and clenched his fists. "Never mind, don't answer that. You're a bandit; you've seen the posters."

Half of the truth.

Will tackled her so quickly she barely had time to react. On instinct, Piper drew Katoptris and slashed at Will, effectively opening a cut in his cheek. He roared in fury and slammed his forehead into her nose. Dazed and bleeding, she fell back against the sand, blood running from her nose and soaking the bandana.

Will approached her, an arrow in his hand. When he was close enough, Piper kicked his legs from beneath him and then mounted him, pressing her knees into his wrists, pinning him down in a way she'd practised a million times before on bandits. She pressed Katoptris against his throat. He stopped struggling immediately.

"Do it," he snarled. Piper rolled her eyes.

"Dead, you're worth nothing," she growled. "And besides, why would I want to hurt a fellow demigod?"

Will frowned. Piper pulled down her hood and bandana.

"Don't you recognize me?" she said, pulling the dagger away from the skin of his throat. "Piper Mclean, daughter of Aphrodite, former girlfriend of Jason Grace, sometimes called Beauty Queen by Leo Valdez."

"Piper," Will murmured in a daze. She grinned before she rolled off of him, sheathing Katoptris and wiping blood off of her face and onto her jacket sleeve.

"I never would've guessed I'd run into you," Will said breathlessly, sitting up on his knees. "Sorry about your nose."

"No worries." Piper glanced over Will quickly, taking in his physical state. His blue eyes were as bright as ever, but his skin was ashen and covered in bruises and gashes. His hair, covered in mud and blood, was a rat's nest. Like Piper, he wore black clothes reminiscent to those of bandits. She hadn't been the only one to have that bright idea then. A brown leather messenger bag hung by his side, a bow and quiver of arrows on his back. He had no other weapons.

"How have you survived?" she asked, getting to her feet before offering her hand to Will.

"I've been with six others," he said. Piper jolted. "I was with Percy, Annabeth, Clarisse, Gwen and Dakota from Camp Jupiter and Jason. We were travelling down south when we were attacked by bandits. Clarisse… Clarisse got taken out." Piper nodded. She'd seen the posters getting taken down. "Dakota was injured. I got separated from them. Percy told us beforehand that if we got separated, we were to rendezvous at the Turtle Pond in Central Park, in New York. That's where I'm headed now. Where are you going?"

Piper shrugged. "I was just heading here to see the camp. I've never seen it in this… state before. Then, I don't know where I was going to go. Probably south to Krios."

"That's where we were going to head. I only came back here because I was in the area."

"Did you say you were meeting the others in New York?"

"Yes?"

"Can I come with you?"

Will had said Jason had been a member of that group. It had been two years since Piper had seen Jason. She was desperate to see him once more, even if he hated her for what she did to the seven and to the gods. At the time, she'd never thought about the effect it would have on him most of all; after all, it wasn't every day one's girlfriend decided to join the armies of a millennia old earth goddess hell bent on destroying Olympus.

She expected Will to say no, but he just smiled and said, "Sure! The others will be ecstatic to know you're with me!"

_More like they'll try to slit my throat._

"We should get moving though. They might think I'm dead if I'm not there within three days. Shall we get going?" Will started off up the hill without waiting for an answer. Piper jogged after him, trying to match his fast pace. She could only just keep the happy bounce out of her walk and struggled against her smile.

She'd see Jason again.


	3. No Solace in the Past

**A/N: Revealing a lot of the past in this one. Lots of stories and shizz like that. Also, take note of any OCs mentioned. Without revealing a lot, I can only say that they're gonna be very important in future chapters.**

**Song: 'Laura Palmer' – Bastille.**

* * *

Travelling with another person was something Piper was going to have to get used to. She'd spent two years being a lone ranger. But, now she had someone to watch her back and vice versa. Will wasn't a bad partner. He was awesome with his bow and was good at moving through the woods. Like Piper, he had a 'bandit costume'. Traveling together on the roads, they looked like a standard pair of bandits, so people gave them a wide berth.

Will had more than a few tales to tell. He'd only ran into Percy, Jason and the others two months previous after spending close to two years travelling the world. He'd been all over Europe and Asia.

"Stay away from Europe," he warned one day as they roasted a pair of squirrels over their campfire. "It's mad. Greece is the centre of Gaia's power, so everything is a mess in Europe."

"So, it's worse over there than it is here?" she asked, sucking on some mint leaves she'd managed to find.

"Yep," Will nodded. "They even have pegasi on their side, patrolling the skies in search of demigods. I was lucky to get out alive. Asia was better, but only slightly. I got all the way to Japan and stole onto a ship to Iapetus. I almost died in the city, since it's so heavily fortified, but I managed to get away in the end. Then, I ended up in San Francisco. I was gonna go to Camp Jupiter, but thought better. So, I ended up going to Mount Tam."

Piper froze. "As in Mount Othrys?"

"Yeah. They still use it as 'the roof of the world'. The gods take it in turns to hold up the sky. Well, two gods in particular." Will shifted uncomfortably. "My dad was there."

"No!"

"Yep. Struggling under the sky. It's too much, even for a god. He looked like he was close to dying. Or fading, or whatever it is gods do. Then, he looked up at me. I don't know if he recognised me or not, because he just told me to run. I didn't argue."

"How long ago was this?"

"Three months ago. Still not over it. You ever seen your mum?"

Piper shook her head. "Nope. I haven't seen her since I change- I mean, since the Fall."

Will didn't pick up on her slip of words thankfully. "None of the others have seen their parents either. I'm the lucky one. Or not so lucky, given the state dad was in."

They didn't talk about their parents much after that conversation. Their talks instead turned to how many demigods were left in the world. From what Will told her, he'd met several other groups of demigods while with Percy and the others. None of them stayed long, as too many demigods attracted the unwanted attention of any monsters in a 100 mile radius.

Octavian was still alive. After the Fall, he too had fallen from the ranks of Gaia's army due to his status as a legacy. Will said he was somewhere in California, hiding and 'snivelling away to himself'. Reyna was alive as well, but she'd fled to South America years ago. Percy and Annabeth had managed to IM her and found out she was in Brazil, but that had been months earlier. From what she'd said to them, it seemed she was heading even further south, to Argentina.

It surprised her just how many demigods and legacies were still alive. Thalia, Travis and Connor, Malcolm, Nico, Drew (ugh), Chris, Pollux, Nyssa, Harley, Lou, Butch and dozens others. She expected them to all be dead. But no. They were alive and well. She saw posters, of course, but for minor demigods like Butch and Malcolm and Drew, they had maybe one poster on the roads while demigods like Thalia and the Twins had posters practically everywhere as they were a much bigger threat than kids of the _rainbow_ goddess.

"I even ran into this one pair of minor demigods," Will said one day, "called Colette Momsey and Eddie Valentine. Daughter of Nike and son of Cratos. Minor demigods. They'd been surviving in this little camp for two years. Never had to move once."

"Must be nice."

When they reached New York, Piper was struck by how beautiful the city was. It was no longer a jungle of tall buildings and strangers with no patience. It was a city claimed by nature and by all accounts a ghost town. Every building was overrun with plants and animals, some crumbling to the ground.

They passed through Brooklyn and headed for the bridge, which they soon found was gone. So, they moved onto the Manhattan bridge, which was thankfully still standing, and crossed the bridge into Manhattan, which was just as deserted as the rest of the city. Manhattan didn't have as many animals, however, so it was even more of a ghost town.

Will and Piper navigated their way through the streets until they reached Central Park. By that time, Piper had shot three rabbits in order to make a meal of them that night. A feast compared to what the pair had been feeding on the previous nights. Will, using his knowledge of berries, managed to scrounge some from the bushes as they made their way to Turtle Pond. He seemed to know which were poisonous and which were dangerous to eat. Piper tried to pick some round, juicy red berries from a particularly large bush that Will seemed to have been avoiding, but Will smacked her hand away.

"You eat them, you're dead in minutes," he warned. Piper decided to leave the berries to him, since he knew his stuff.

When they reached turtle pond, they started a fire and slow roasted their rabbits as the sun fell overhead. While they waited for the rabbits to roast, they explored. Will seemed to get caught in memories as they walked and after a while, he started chattering away, pointing out seamlessly random things and telling Piper about the memories they held.

"Desmond Reacher, son of Tyche, got acid thrown in his face over there," he said, pointing to a small rock formation. "And over there-" he pointed to a cluster of rotting park benches "- is where my half-brother Felix Löfgren got an arrow to the knee. Seriously."

"When did all this happen?" Piper asked as Will told her of Beverly Quinn, daughter of Aphrodite, who was attacked by a pack of ten strong hellhounds and killed them all single-handedly.

"During the Battle of Manhattan, three years ago," Will said. "We sacrificed a lot during that battle for the gods. They thanked us, yes, but they couldn't bring back our lost comrades. Like my half-brother Michael, for instance."

Will sighed and shook his head. Piper was sure she saw tears in his eyes for a second, but he blinked and they were gone. Maybe she imagined them.

Will set off again, Piper lagging a few steps behind, her mind going over the many names and injuries Will rattled off to her. Erin Wyatt, daughter of Ares, was left near death after an explosion. Lewis Jonson, son of Hermes, had both legs broken by a falling statue. Maxine Mercer, daughter of Zelus, suffered from third degree burns when Hyperion, titan of light, attacked.

It was horrible, too horrible to think about. Piper couldn't believe some of the things the demigods went through in order to protect their parents from fading from existence. Had she known of the sacrifices they made in the past, she would never have joined Gaia in the first place. It made all of their pain and suffering completely worthless now.

"Oh my gods," Will said, coming to a halt. Piper almost slammed into him, but she managed to stop herself.

"What's wrong?" Piper asked, standing by Will's side. He was staring at a tree stump big enough to be fourteen seat table. With a sickening jolt in her stomach, Piper realised what it was. She and Will both voiced their thoughts at the same time.

"Hyperion's tree."

Will glanced at her, eyebrow raised.

"Annabeth brought me here once," Piper said, a little too quickly. "She showed me the tree and told me what it was."

Will frowned, but he still bought the lie. Piper let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. If Will knew of her involvement with Gaia and the releasing of Hyperion two summers ago, he wouldn't be so friendly with her.

"So, that's how he was released," Will mumbled, approaching the stump. Piper didn't trust herself not to slip up, so she kept quiet. "They cut down the damn tree and released the best fucking Titan warrior."

Piper bit her lip. She remembered the cutting down of the tree. She had been there. She'd _helped._

"I'd always wondered how Hyperion got out," Will was saying, running his hand along the sun browned wood. "When he showed up at Camp Half-Blood, I was confused. I'd seen him get turned into a tree right before my very eyes. I stood there for minutes, trying to figure out how he was alive. Then, he started tearing up the camp."

_Oh no._

"He burnt down the Big House first, then the cabins. Turned campers into human torches. The smell was… He started on the amphitheatre and arena then, slicing them to shreds with his swords. Then, he grew, and kept growing till he was ten foot tall. He grabbed Chiron, lifted the guy up by his tail."

_No, no, no._

"Chiron was shouting at him in Greek, screaming abuse and slandering the names of all the Titans, and Gaia's. Hyperion laughed and just set Chiron on fire, there and then."

_Holy shit._

"Threw him like a rag doll. I've never heard Chiron scream before, but the noises he was making then as he landed in front of me…" Will shuddered. "I knew what I needed to do then. I got my siblings out. I didn't care about anyone else, and I'm not afraid to admit that. I just wanted those from my own cabin, my family, out of there first. When we got away, I told Felix to take them. Told them I was going back to help others. They took off. Never seen them since."

Will shook his head before looking back up at Piper with a watery smile. "All in the past now, right?"

Without waiting for an answer, he brushed past her and headed for the distant plume of smoke that was their campfire and their meal. Piper cast a lingering gaze over the stump, sighed and jogged to catch up with her comrade.

The moment she fell into line with him, she froze, her eyes wide. She was sure she'd heard growling. She was sure it was coming from the bushes beside her.

"What's wrong?" Will asked, a little too loudly.

"Shut up!" she hissed, drawing her knife. Will understood immediately and drew his bow, knocking an arrow.

Piper approached the bush, knife held before her. Will was by her side, mirroring her movements. His arrow was aimed straight at the bushes. The pair breathed heavily as whatever was in the bush growled once more.

Then, the Chimera jumped out of the bushes and attacked.


	4. Loss and Gain

**A/N: Not updated in a while and I'm sorry about that. With homework and exams and the novel I'm writing and family shit, not really had the time. Oh, more of Piper's past and what she did to make the others hate her will be revealed in the next chapter. Sorry for any feels in this chapter.**

**Song: 'Lost Cause' - Imagine Dragons.**

* * *

Instincts took over. Piper slashed at the Chimera with her dagger, knowing the weapon was only meant to be ceremonial but also knowing it was all she had with her. Curse her stupidity for leaving her pack back at the little camp at Turtle Pond, but thank the Gods that Will had his bow.

He quickly used up half of his arrows trying to distract the creature, to give Piper time to recover from being tackled and try to formulate a plan. While the Chimera's back was turned, Piper managed to get a good look at it. Ten foot tall at least, with a lion's head, the body of a goat, a blood soaked mane and a tail that was actually a deadly snake. The snake hissed angrily, spitting everywhere, while the lion's head opened its maw and roared. When it did, it spewed flames.

_Fantastic._

The Chimera advanced on Will. He backed up, trying to get away, but the Chimera spewed flames again. Will only just managed to duck in time. Three trees behind him went up in flames. Piper ran forwards and launched herself onto the Chimera's back, sinking her knife into the monster's shoulder. The Chimera roared once more and the snake's head spat, lunging for Piper but she dodged. Will leapt on the Chimera's back as well, holding arrows in his hand. He dug them into the back of the Chimera, and the snake head lunged again, this time at will. Except, Will wasn't looking.

"Will!" Piper screamed. He turned, but at the last second. The snake dug it's fangs into his shoulder.

Will screamed and fell from the Chimera's back, blood running from the four large puncture wounds in his shoulder. Piper was frozen where she sat, her knife in her hand.

Red swarmed her vision and fury coursed through her veins. She leapt off of the back of the Chimera and ran to Will, pulling his bow from his quiver and leaping onto the back of the Chimera again. She pulled the wooden part of the bow into its mouth, yanking back the top of its mouth. Its mouth wide open and vulnerable, she stuck her knife through the roof. The Chimera roared and exploded into a cloud of brown dust. Piper fell down to the ground in a heap and scampered over to Will.

He was lying on his back, hand covering the puncture wounds. Green poison mingled with his blood, and his veins and arteries stood out against his skin, the same green as the liquid that was slowly but surely infecting him. For a second, she thought she could save him, before she realized how quickly the poison was spreading and how quickly Will was dying.

"Eyes on me," she said loudly, slapping the side of his pale and clammy face. She cradled his head in her lap, fingers clenched over the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. Will blinked woozily and focused his eyes on hers, trying to hold her gaze.

"Hurts," he mumbled, clenching his fist over his stomach. "It hurts, Piper."

"I know, I know," she said, brushing hair back from his forehead.

"Ambrosia doesn't work," Will was mumbling. "Or nectar. Seen this shit before. It's pretty much incurable."

Tears stung Piper's eyes. "You're gonna be okay. You'll be fine. C'mon Will! Fight it!"

"Sorry, Piper," he mumbled. His breathing was laboured and too shallow. Piper checked his pulse, which she found to be much too fast and thready.

"Please, Will," she whispered.

He blinked twice. His breathing begun to slow. His pulse was getting weaker and weaker to the point where Piper could only just feel it, fluttering faintly against the pad of her finger. Will focused his blue eyes on her and managed a small smile.

"Did I ever tell you that you're really pretty?" he asked, blood thickening his voice. Piper managed a choked laugh and did her best to return Will's smile. His eyes moved to the starry sky, and his breathing stopped.

She didn't even try to stop the tears from flowing, or stop the scream of anguish the escaped her lips. Her hands, stained with Will's blood, gripped the sides of her head, pulling on her shortened hair.

Another demigod down.

Two years on, it still amazed Piper at how quickly they dropped. They were literally flies caught in a nice breeze of bug spray. Demigods like Will and Clarisse and Leo caught the full force of it, while others like herself, Percy and Annabeth received only a small amount; just enough to start the slow process of dying.

Piper closed Will's eyes. She stood and pulled his heavy, limp body up onto her shoulder, trying to be as careful as she could. A kind of determination fuelling her onwards, she began the lonely trek back to the camp, back down the overgrown path that she and Will had walked down together less than an hour previous.

_He thought I was pretty,_ she thought, her eyes brimming with tears once more. _He wouldn't have thought that if I'd told him what happened._

The walk seemed longer than it had done before, but it might have had something to do with the fact that Piper had to stop every so often to readjust Will on her shoulder so that he didn't fall off. When she finally reached the camp, she laid his body down carefully in his sleeping bag, tucking him in and pulling the cover over his head. She pulled their meal, now cooked, off of the spit and placed it over a silver pot nearby. She dragged Will around to the other side of Turtle Pond and, using her bare hands, she dug a hole big enough to house Will's body.

Covered in dirt and blood, Piper made her way back to her camp, only to find seven people already sitting there, devouring the meal that was meant to be hers.

* * *

For a few moments, she didn't move and she didn't speak. She just stared at the group, eyes wide and full of fear. Five of them she recognised; the other two she didn't. Her mind went over their names. Percy and Annabeth, with their matching scars from Tartarus across their eyes. Dakota, with his arm in a sling; Gwen with her bushy ginger hair and blood staining her shirt. Jason, all blond hair and blue eyes, the little scar on his upper lip standing out against his skin more than she remembered.

The other two were demigods she'd seen around Camp Half-Blood before. She had fractured memories of the two being inseparable, always sitting next to each other in matching orange shirts with frayed edges. The girl had large front teeth, pale green eyes, an upturned nose and a lot of freckles. As Piper looked her over, she counted no less than sixteen scars criss-crossing over her body. The boy had deep set, chocolate brown eyes, overgrown brown hair, olive toned skin and acne splattered on his left cheek.

Piper's kaleidoscope eyes focused on Jason, drinking in his features, illuminated by the soft glow of the flickering fire. He was even more handsome than she remembered, what with his shaggy hair and battle scars up and down his neck and face. She guessed that his arms, torso and legs were also covered in dozens of the little white scars. Reminders of battles won, and some lost, possibly.

His eyes seemed older, wiser, like they'd seen so much death and destruction and devastation that there simply wasn't room for any more. He was focused on the fire, frowning slightly as he turned some of the meat he held over and over in his hands.

Seeing the meat reminded her of Will. Piper and Will were meant to share that meal. But, Will wasn't there anymore, and Piper hadn't been around to claim it all for her own. She herself had raided empty camps and stolen what she could in order to survive. She couldn't be angry at the group for doing the same thing she'd been doing for two years. Hypocrisy sat very low on her list.

Nevertheless, she drew her knife and cleared her throat.

"That's my meal you're eating," she said. The group jumped and dropped the various bits of meat, reaching for weapons. They all turned to her where she stood with just her knife, her duffel bag, bow and quiver sitting on the other side of the camp, behind where the girl with the big teeth sat.

"Finders keepers," the acne kid said. "Maybe you shouldn' have left it alone."

"I was burying a friend," Piper growled. "It was supposed to be our meal."

The demigods shifted uncomfortably where they stood. Percy's face twitched around his scar, which cut through his left eyebrow and straight through his left cheek, marring his face.

"What friend?" Annabeth asked, her own scar, sitting on the right side of her face, glowing white in the poor light of the campfire. "Are you a demigod? You seem… familiar."

"Yeah, I'm a demigod," Piper muttered, scuffing the ground with her foot. "Surprised you haven't recognised me, to be honest. Probably the haircut's fault. And, that friend was Will Solace. He came here for you guys."

Jason was squinting at Piper where she stood, cloaked by shadows. She really was surprised that none of the group recognised her, Maybe it was her gaunt features, or her scars or even just the shadows. As soon as she stepped into the light, they'd recognise her.

Will's name caused an outbreak of shouting and cursing and even a few tears from Gwen.

"How'd he die?" Dakota asked, stepping closer to Piper.

"Chimera attack," Piper said, flipping her knife over in her hand. "Snake head bit him. Poison spread too fast. He died; I buried him across the pond."

"Fuck!" Percy shouted, kicking at the log Will and Piper had set up as a bench.

"Who are you?" Annabeth asked, resting her hands on her hips. "Come into the light."

Piper took a deep breath before stepping into the soft light of the fire. The effect of the light shining on her features was instantaneous. Percy and Annabeth snarled. Jason drained of all colour. The two strangers and the Romans skittered back. The girl with the large-teeth fell backwards over her backpack.

"Piper Mclean," Piper said, standing tall. "Daughter of Aphrodite."


End file.
